Make your finances your business.

A Family CEO Job Description

This blog began over nine years ago when I hired myself to make over my family’s finances. My theory was that if I treated our finances like a job, I could make as big of an impact as the real-life, outside the home, part-time job I was considering at the time.

My theory turned out to be true. Yet, in all this time I’ve never created a Family CEO job description.

Recently, I set out to fix that.

Why Write a Job Description?

The duties in my job description aren’t groundbreaking; I did most of them before I hired myself and I imagine you do many of them too.

Nonetheless, there are benefits to creating a list of tasks that make up your Family CEO job description:

First, there’s a shift in thinking that takes place when you stop looking at the parts of your job description as random items on a to-do list, and instead view them as the description of an important role that you fill. It wasn’t so much the things I did as the way I thought about the things I did that allowed me to make a positive change in our finances. Hiring myself made me more intentional and accountable than before.

When viewing the list as a whole, you can identify places where you want to improve or simplify your finances. You can also see holes where you should be doing things that you’re not currently doing.

Finally, if you have a spouse or partner, you can use the list to divide duties. Even if one of you is the organized one or the numbers person (and I think that’s usually the case) there will be areas where you need to work together (i.e. investing) or where the non-Family CEO type may want or need to take the lead.

So, with that said, here are the things that currently make up my Family CEO job description:

My Family CEO Job Description

Banking & Money Management

Making bank, IRA, & HSA deposits.

Doing monthly account reconciliations. Down to the penny! I’m compulsive about this, people, although it’s not necessary to be.

Preparing the tax organizer & business paperwork for our CPA, meeting with him once a year and emailing when I have questions.

Doing the kids’ (now just Grant’s) taxes.

Stuff Management

Purchasing stuff for the household, making returns, and sending in rebates. Although now that the kids are grown and our schedules less hectic, Tom and I do some of this together. Is it embarrassing to say that we consider a joint Costco run a mini-date?

Getting rid of stuff through a combination of donating, selling, giving away or trashing. I am completely hooked on simplifying.

Handling kids’ school stuff. We’re down to just one in college now so this is much simpler.

Maintaining our household filing system.

What’s Missing?

Insurance. My husband is an insurance agent so I leave all of that to him. It’s why I rarely blog about insurance either.

Budgeting. As I’ve said before, I love making up budgets but I’m no good at following them. Instead, I try to keep our fixed expenses as low as possible, max out our IRAs and HSA, and use found money to squirrel away a bit more.

Debt Management. This used to be a big part of my job description. It included things like developing a debt snowball plan, finding money to throw at our debt, negotiating interest rates, and tracking our progress. We currently have a 15-year mortgage at 3% and one car loan at .9% and we’re content to let those pay off according to schedule for now, so debt management (other than paying those two bills) is no longer a part of my job description.

Writing Your Own Job Description

Here are the things that helped me get my job description down on paper:

Start with main categories of duties, and then add in the details.

Look over whatever system you use to track your money, as well as your filing system, wallet, even your calendar to jog your memory about the Family CEO things you do.

Treat this as a process. You can add and subtract things as you think of them or as your life changes.

Now, it’s your turn. What are some of the things your Family CEO job description include?

2 Replies to “A Family CEO Job Description”

I love the idea of a family CEO, or more importantly, taking a deep look at some of the tasks it takes to run a family. Many people fall into these tasks without actually thinking about how well they do them or not, and how to improve on doing them.

Day-to-day, the most important in our house has got to be meal planning! Having food that nutritious, delicious, and lines up with what’s on sale that week at the grocery store!

Just sending emails, booking appointments and keeping in touch with family online adds a requirement for a typist!

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The Family CEO is for general information or entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice.

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